Beach Work Costs Rising In Hillsboro

But Residents Chafe At High Estimates Of Renourishment

HILLSBORO BEACH — The bad news is that beach renourishment will be more costly than residents had hoped. The good news is that the project is still scheduled to start early next year.

The news was delivered to about 50 residents at a special meeting at Town Hall.

An hour of questions from residents followed an hourlong presentation by James Ward, a representative from a Coral Springs accounting firm hired to determine what residents will have to pay.

Ward outlined how much each household would be assessed based on three cost estimates for the renourishment project and the location of the individual households.

If the project costs the town $2.5 million, each household would pay $436 to $1,306, Ward said. If the project costs $3.25 million, the costs would be $566 to $1,698 per household; and if the town's cost is $3.75 million, households would pay $653 to $1,959.

``It's more than I thought it would be,'' said Bernadine O'Keefe, of Port DeMer, a condominium in the northernmost part of Hillsboro Beach. ``We're getting zonked because we happen to be in the highest pay zone.''

O'Keefe also questioned the necessity of the project.

``We don't see a huge problem here,'' she said. ``We still have 30 feet of beach and I don't believe that more of it won't come back.''

The project is scheduled to begin early next year, pending a similar project in Boca Raton that Hillsboro hopes to join.

``Boca Raton hasn't signed the contract for their beach renourishment project yet, but they have to within a certain amount of time since work must not be done during the nesting season for turtles, which is sometime between September and May,'' said commissioner Howard ``Chuck'' Sussman.

Plans call for the beach to be extended by about 140 feet. The project will cover a quarter mile along Deerfield Beach and a mile along Hillsboro Beach south of the Deerfield Beach line. The sand will be dredged from two sites off the coast of Hillsboro and one off the coast of Deerfield Beach.

A date for a fall meeting has not been set.

``The idea was to stop any rumors before they got out of control and to alleviate any fears the public may have had about how much they would be assessed for the project,'' said Sussman.